That's right... I couldn't have enough of those awesome winning apps... World class, no wait, galaxy class ;)
Now folks.. really.. this is going to be funny yet serious (at the end).. I just wrote it on my gear using one of the winning 'notes' apps ;)
Now first for the people counting apps here are some stats of my own:
POI apps - 5 apps - these are or can mostly be very useful apps
"Water" apps - 3 apps (including one 'tea app', oh yeah, innovatinve, great commercial potential - you get a free gear with the water app preinstalled if you buy a pack of bottled water)
Sport apps - 9 apps (including the incredible Puppy Pedometer, personally I fondle my gear every even step)
Guitar apps - 4 apps (Too bad for Gibson, they're on for fast bankruptcy man.. now that you can play the guitar by waving your hand in the air)
Presentation - 3 apps (Really handy some of these.. I mean why would you hold a device in your hand and push a hardware button to go to the next slide if you could lift your hand up, wait for the gear screen to turn on and aim at some
spot on the screen to show the next slide... And why look the audience in the eye if you can look at your lovely wrist ;)
Games - 17 apps (oooh, that's what I'm talking about... gaming has never been that awesome, how could have people played games on their home computers or mobile phones... just the sheer amount of light hitting your eyes from those
monstrous screens... Now seriously, some games could work on the gear, casual games you play while waiting for the bus, some of them I found really playable and well done, but they didn't make it in the first round)
Music - 7 apps (now there are two types of 'music' apps, with some of them a couple of friends and I formed a modern orchestra guitar + drums + tambourine... now imagine adding a metronome, oooh, that's what people applauded us for at
the local theatre... in all fairness though, there are some music control apps that can really come in handy)
Alcohol - 2 apps (not worth any of my sarcasm...)
Camera related: 12 apps (Some of these are actually good /remote camera control/... but they're no compare to one of them with which you take photos from your 'life' at specific time intervals. I can pretty much guess where I've been by
looking at the nummerous desk photos it produces. And.. upside-down photos actually work your brain!)
Emergency / SOS / Help: 10 apps (now.. Samsung who do you think you are... with the gear you ship a "SOS" app that's totally lame... People WANT others to know they want to secretly send an emergency message. People want to wave a
flashy red button after they browse for the emergency app for a while... who needs convenience when you can have a big red button...)
Navigation / GPS - 12 apps (I particularly like the philosophical flavor you can attach to some of these - "Where am I? Why am I on this world" mhmm... Joke aside, it's really cool that I can put my phone in MA pocket where the GPS
reception is at its strongest.. Now seriously, sarcasm aside, some of these apps could actually come in handy in some situations)
Shopping - 4 apps - these are of the few types of apps I actually find to be useful on a smart watch... although I wonder how convenient scrolling a rather long list would be
Health and fitness apps - 7 apps - these are also what I think the kind of apps a smartwatch can be better for than a smartphone. well at least in some situations... So anyway I think that the elder generation which is the MAIN target
group of smartwatches would indeed greatly benefit "pills apps"...)
Watch faces - 4 apps (the highly custmizable LCD watch aside I can really imagine people using a moon phase clock, like to check if your neighbor is going to transform into a werewolf tonight, I see this further developed into providing
valuable info about other nocturnal beasts)
Now there are other great types of apps and single apps that I simply can't mention, I'm just overwhelmed. Like I could see employees using a corporation-sponsored 'fake call' app to get out of business meetings, because why have
business meetings when you can not have them, right. The only problem is there actually are two 'fake call' apps and it's gonna be tough to choose... unless you roll dice using that awesome winning dice app, yah!
I've decided to have the serious part in a second post.
Now to get serious, in my opinion there are only 10-20 apps from the winning ones that actually deserve to be winners. I won't repeat what have been said before about the funny criteria and funny choices. And by funny I mean a lot other
negative words... Instead I will present some facts for everyone to be aware of and draw their own conclusions.
- I remember some guy in the discussion board had issues uploading the video in time or something and I remember the moderator's response explaining rules must be followed strictly... So if you go and check the video publish time of the
"My Notes in Gear" app you will find it was uploaded almost 4 minutes after the deadline (5:03:51 pm EDT).
- A LOT of the winning apps were made by people from Poland. No wonder as Samsung has two R&D Centres in Poland. There is for example a team of Polisih developers who published quite a few apps, 5(!) of which became winners (e.g.
Moonphase clock, Dice...). Now the interesting part is that one of the member of the team bskorupski (Bartosz Skorupski) is a Frontend Dev @Samsung and @TizenProject and @FirefoxOSFeed enthusiast as he proudly announced in his Twitter
and other profiles. Another app of the team is called 'Fake call', its video on Youtube is listed as published on July 18, there is no public video from July 17 or earlier, hmmm... The guy who's uploaded that very same video - Andrzej
Grupniski - is a UI/UX Designer w Samsung Poland R&D Center. In another of their winning apps - WalkingNavi! - you can see a guy exiting a building... which happens to be the Samsung R&D building in Poznan, Poland. The same guy then
uses a phone to navigate to some place, his starting point is the very same Samsung R&D Poznan address. Yet another app this bskorupski guy co-developed is called 'Guitar Gearo', its youtube video was uploaded on July 18/19. Now they
might have just deleted/changed the original video or they might have not :)
- Penguin Survivor and Puppy Pedometer's videos show a Windows app overlayed on top of the Gear emulator. Penguin Survivor is listed in the market as version 1.0.0 from August 20.
- POI nearby for Galaxy Gear 2
The author appears to be an ex Samsung Poland R&D center employee
- BabyMonitor
Another one whose video appears to be uploaded after the deadline or changed/deleted, who knows..
- Now there was some guy in the forum who also happens to be from Poland, his app - Remote Camera - is listed almost at the top of the apps list when sorted by 'NEW' and listed as published on August 20, albeit version 3.0.0. Updated
apps don't get listed as 'new'. So why is it then listed as 'new', maybe there is an explanation :)
- GearTasks and GearWeb
One of the developers works at Samsung, the other one too - at the Samsung Austin R&D Center.
- Video controversy (All these apps' videos were uploaded after the submission deadline, but there are no original videos publicly available, what's going on... who knows, maybe they've deleted them or whatever... still the fact
remains):
-- Bike Computer, July 21/22
-- Rescue Gear, July 19
-- Wings of fire, August 14
- There are a lot of wining apps whose developers have previously won one or multiple times in a Samsung developer challenge.
- The developer of Bike! and QR, both of which are winning apps is called Bartlomiej Koper and is a Group Leader, Manager at Samsung Electronics in Poznan, Poland, has also been to and worked in Korea.
I think that pretty much sums the facts.
Mind you, I don't blame anyone, I'm just showing facts. Interpret them as you wish.
I myself wonder what people do in these R&D centres. Do they develop apps? Do they do app certification? Could the fact that you do certification testing and take part at the challenge at the same time influence the certification
quality or result in any way? Or the fact that you take part in the challenge and know the people who do certification. Samsung would surely answer they're very professional.. but are they? These are questions that will probably remain
unanswered, but I for one know that there's a lot about this challenge I dislike and there is a lot of negativity I feel towards Samsung...
@HereWeGoAgain:
"- Now there was some guy in the forum who also happens to be from Poland, his app - Remote Camera - is listed almost at the top of the apps list when sorted by 'NEW' and listed as published on August 20, albeit version 3.0.0. Updated "
Are you talking about market or challengePost? In market it is normal. Why you are surprised? App was initially for one device and now it was updated to all so that's why it could be in NEW for other phones. How exactlly it works is a good question for Samsung. I personally have no idea how algorithms for top in market works. Unpredictable...
@HereWeGoAgain Puppy Pedometer is a killer! They are following every modern and Samsung Gear UI guideline! But for some reason my eyes are bleeding when I see it... How can an app like that be a winner!?!
It would be interesting for me what officials say about facts given by @HereWeGo Again as official rules states 'Employees, representatives and agents of the above organizations [Samsung & ChallangePost] who are involved with the design, production, promotion, execution, or distribution of the Challenge, and all members of their immediate family or household* are not eligible to participate.'
As a lot of people here I am very disappointed in the judging and I better stick with Microsoft's organized contests, although the judging period for the last one (PublishWindows) was like 2 months. Better do it longer but more qualitatively
I am sorry to hear about the dissatisfaction with "Puppy Pedometer" mentioned. I would welcome suggestions for improvements. :) I mean, I've seen positive comments about "PlantBeats" that also won, so I assumed the concept of a virtual pet to walk with was seen as interesting. Do you believe the stats displayed need to be changed all to simply "XP"? Or is there something else that is causing offense / causing it to be seen as inferior to other interactive pedometer applications? (I am serious on the interest in critical feedback beyond a general "it sucks" or "I fondle my gear(?)").
Regarding the dates: Check all of the apps from my profile in the store. All of them show as updated August 20th for some unknown reason. Sort the list of all apps by "Top->New" and you should see none were released recently however. Of the ones mentioned, "Penguin Survivor" passed QA on July 23 while "Puppy Pedometer" passed QA on August 1st. I submitted no updates since approval for any of these ("Puppy Pedometer" has an increased version number due to being rejected once).
Personal opinion: I expected only "Puppy Pedometer" and "Clockwork Mice" to advance. I was surprised "Penguin Survivor" did while "Clockwork Mice" did not. You may disagree with my assessment.
Thank you for the feedback. :)
EDIT: If you hesitate to post it here, I encourage you to send me an email! I do find it highly useful to hear about how much my ideas are crap as it is how I can improve upon them. So feel free to vent at me since I am asking for it. For an email, please feel free to contact: admin "at" phdgaming "dot" com. Thank you again!
@PHDGaming no one said your ideas are crap, just a crappy execution. Don't you really see that the UI is like from 2000s? It is neither modern nor retro (like Flappy Bird and others), it just looks and feels like it was made decade ago.
@kmbriedis - Got it and noted. Improvements to the UI design are planned and will take an even closer look on how to make that better. If you have any other specifics on the UI you dislike, feel free to let me know. I do appreciate it!
@PHDGaming. I'll approach the issue from a bit of a different perspective. First, I think Puppy Pedometer is a really decent effort. However, I think the discomfort expressed in comments above comes from a seeming attempt to implement two different types of design paradigms within the same canvas/app.
The environment when your puppy eats/naps looks balanced ... and seems to uniformly adopt the flat design kind of paradigm (http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/09/shots-showcase-ios-7s-design.html) . But when puppy starts walking (http://s3.amazonaws.com/challengepost/photos/production/software_photos/000/146/547/datas/xlarge.png?1405642776), it appears the buttons on that screen follow a non-flat paradigm (from a really long time ago) .
@viente thank you for confirming that judges saw your video during judging period, i sent screenshot of you tube analytic showing that no one visited my video, i suggest anyone else experiencing the same issue to send an email to support@challengepost.com
@HereWeGoAgain - that was sarcastic but also very comprehensive summary !
You wrote:
"...Presentation - 3 apps (Really handy some of these.. I mean why would you hold a device in your hand and push a hardware button to go to the next slide if you could lift your hand up, wait for the gear screen to turn on and aim at some...."
I think you might be referring to our app here ( SlideEasy) as we're giving users option to use gestures to change slides. Please kindly note the following:
1. We know that hardware presentations switcher devices (as you seemed to be referring to those) are doing similar tasks. But please also bear in mind that:
- some might just prefer not to hold anything in their hands and have them free. Others might prefer hardware switch. Ofcourse app does not have to suit everyone to be useful and marketable.
- why have additional devices if your smartwatch can already do the work ?
- smartwatch app can have additional information about your presentation (time, reminders, maybe simple notes like key numbers etc. that currently are displayed in our mobile app etc.)
- it is very easy to configure with your phone and external screen / projector
- it is more powerful. For instance important aspect of our app were buzz alarms that are discretely helping you keep presentation timing right. This is something you will not have in dedicated presentation switchers hardware and keeping time is very important aspect of good presentation.
2. I totally agree that paying audience attention to your hand movements is not the best idea while doing presentation. But you can do gesture in a really discrete manner as well without lifting your hand that much as shown in the video.
3. If user prefer not to use gestures at all than in the app you might also use buttons to switch slides (you do not need to look at watch screen for that, just tap on the left/right part of it). Using gestures is just one of options. Users can choose what's more convenient for them. We wanted to give users various choices to see what's going to work out better.
I will be happy to further discuss with you our app. I am open to any remarks - they might be a great help for us !
@HereWeGoagain
As for the 2nd part of your msg there is quite big and skilled development community in Poland which might be one of the reasons you see so many entries from our country. But if you know / suspect that some of Polish contestants are here illegally as T&C clearly forbids to enter competition if you're anyhow related to Samsung, than it's not right at all and I believe you should write to the organizors (if you had not done it yet).
I am not sure if they are following this forum and will see your remarks.
EDIT: my mistake here. Only Samsung employees directly related with the contests are excluded from participation according to T&C.
@HereWeGoagain, @TomaszF1
I think rules are quite clear. Let me quote:
'Employees, representatives and agents of the above organizations [Samsung & ChallangePost] who are involved with the design, production, promotion, execution, or distribution of the Challenge, and all members of their immediate family or household* are not eligible to participate.'
In Poland there are many workers of Samung R&D. I belive that not all of them are "involved with the design, production, promotion, execution, or distribution of the Challenge" so even people mentioned by HereWeGoagain are members of Samsung I think it still seems legit.
@Zuoo you are right. I admit I have actually not checked T&C but assumed as it is a common practice that individuals related to company which is contest organizer are not eligible to participate. Sorry for that. Surprisingly it's a bit different here and so no rules seem to have been broken.
@HereWeGoAgain
"- I remember some guy in the discussion board had issues uploading the video in time or something and I remember the moderator's response explaining rules must be followed strictly... So if you go and check the video publish time of the
"My Notes in Gear" app you will find it was uploaded almost 4 minutes after the deadline (5:03:51 pm EDT)."
Please be careful when writing about facts and rules. Inaccurate facts lead to inaccurate conclusions.
I am the author of this application. Keep in in mind that you are referring to the publication time of the video to YouTube. This is not the submission time to ChallengePost.
The video of my app has been created in YouTube BEFORE the submission deadline.
The submission of my app to ChallengePost has been completed BEFORE the deadline.
I received the confirmation email from ChallengePost BEFORE the deadline...
I would highly appreciate it if you correct your comment about my app.
@Jimis yes, you could have started uploading video, after you START this process you receive the link which you used for submission, but the video was ready after the deadline so you kinda broke rules
Iam very disappointed as i have spent time in developing my app News Wear, Video Crediting and not qualified & there's same application idea that have fatal issues as "Unfortunately App has been stopped has been qualified"
I don't know what's the judging criteria !!!
@kmbriedis
Not even in one place the official rules say about deadline for youtube videos, they do about submissions only. If Jimis made the submission BEFORE the deadline, then he did not break the rules.
People, remain calm. I've just listed facts. Anyone whose submission is valid shouldn't worry. The facts and questions still remain...
@kurak38
As per the rules your app should have passed certification by the challenge deadline. Your app is listed as 'new' from August 20, which means that this is when it's passed certification. I'm not surprised, I'm just wondering. Updates to apps are not shown as 'new', so it's only logical that your app was certified and first published to the Gear market on August 20. And until you or any Samsung representative explains the situation it would seem that your app was certified after the challenge deadline.
@PHDGaming
You never commented why your videos show a Windows native window instead of actually working app. I think you're correct about the dates. Yours might have been updated on August 20, but since they're not seen in 'new' (not in the upper positions anyway) they were probably certified in time.
Generally speaking the lack of transparency is very bad. How can any challenge participant be sure apps were certified on time.
@TomaszF1
You, like anyone else, shouldn't take my words too personally. It's just an opinion :) I'm more concerned with the general failure of the judging to be of any consistency. To be perfectly honest, I think your 'buzz' feature is very useful and really what makes using a smart-watch a lot better than a hardware switcher. I wouldn't mind discussing further, but this wasn't the intention of my posts here, so maybe in another thread :)
@TomaszF1
I don't suspect or know anything. I'm listing the facts. And facts are important, because they can lead to very logical questions. Some people were complaining about the certification process, receiving silly rejections and so on. The question then arises - how can any challenge participant be sure his app is not being certified by a competitor. Because if people who do certification and at the same time take part in the challenge might intentionally or subconsciously not perform professionally when certifying apps.
@Zuoo
You're correct, not all of them are involved in the design, production, promotion, executing or distribution of the Challenge. But aren't those who certify the apps involved in the execution of the challenge? How about friends of the certification team members. So you work in the same office as someone who certifies apps and you take part in the challenge. Would it be totally impossible for certification members to sympathize with their friends rather than with strangers? And generally how do we know who is who and who does what. Generally speaking maybe letting your employees win a competition might be a smart bonus trick a company would do to promote company loyalty :)
@Jimis
Facts are facts... are facts... Inaccurate conclusions are done by people. But since you decided to join... Just like someone else mentioned. Rules have it that your submission is only valid if you provide a valid youtube video. But at 17:00 EDT you had a link but not video. So technically even if for 4 minutes your submission was invalid.
But really... Are apps like 'a dice' or a 'moon phase clock' or an "LCD clock" worth winning the $100.000? Any of the first round winner apps should be worth fighting for the big prize. In my personal opinion among the apps who didn't win there are plenty that are way way better than most of the first round winners.
Someone in the discussion board mentioned their app was rejected, because they had the 'Samsung' logo and this delayed their certification for more than 7 days. Now if I am a certification team member and take part in the challenge at the same time I'm putting my competitors at a disadvantage, because unlike them I could change my app as I please and nobody would know. Now even if there were no certification team members who took part in the challenge, the certification team members could still sympathize with their colleagues from other departments and certify their apps with higher priority. This is exactly why no good organization allows any of their members to take part in their own games/challenges/etc.!
@HereWeGoAgain
I actually don't care what you say or suggest, and I don't have time for it. I have an e-mail from 5.08.2014 saying that my app is "Ready For Sale" and on that day it was in the market. End of topic
@HereWeGoAgain " Rules have it that your submission is only valid if you provide a valid youtube video"
Please spend some time reading the rules and stop wasting my time. It is clearly stated: " Entries submitted on the Challenge website must include a URL for a video on YouTube"
@ kmbriedis "so you kinda broke rules". We live in a binary world. You can either follow either break the rules. There is no kinda break or kinda follow the rules. Please spend some time reading the rules and stop wasting my time.
@ kurak38
Totally agree with you. Sorry for continuing the topic.
Happy coding to everyone!
End of topic (hopefully...)
I wanted to address some of the issues here but I've figured out it's indeed a waste of time. What I really have to say is: good luck in the next part of the competition guys ;) Happy coding!
62 comments
HereWeGoAgain • almost 12 years ago
That's right... I couldn't have enough of those awesome winning apps... World class, no wait, galaxy class ;)
Now folks.. really.. this is going to be funny yet serious (at the end).. I just wrote it on my gear using one of the winning 'notes' apps ;)
Now first for the people counting apps here are some stats of my own:
POI apps - 5 apps - these are or can mostly be very useful apps
"Water" apps - 3 apps (including one 'tea app', oh yeah, innovatinve, great commercial potential - you get a free gear with the water app preinstalled if you buy a pack of bottled water)
Sport apps - 9 apps (including the incredible Puppy Pedometer, personally I fondle my gear every even step)
Guitar apps - 4 apps (Too bad for Gibson, they're on for fast bankruptcy man.. now that you can play the guitar by waving your hand in the air)
Presentation - 3 apps (Really handy some of these.. I mean why would you hold a device in your hand and push a hardware button to go to the next slide if you could lift your hand up, wait for the gear screen to turn on and aim at some
spot on the screen to show the next slide... And why look the audience in the eye if you can look at your lovely wrist ;)
Games - 17 apps (oooh, that's what I'm talking about... gaming has never been that awesome, how could have people played games on their home computers or mobile phones... just the sheer amount of light hitting your eyes from those
monstrous screens... Now seriously, some games could work on the gear, casual games you play while waiting for the bus, some of them I found really playable and well done, but they didn't make it in the first round)
Music - 7 apps (now there are two types of 'music' apps, with some of them a couple of friends and I formed a modern orchestra guitar + drums + tambourine... now imagine adding a metronome, oooh, that's what people applauded us for at
the local theatre... in all fairness though, there are some music control apps that can really come in handy)
Alcohol - 2 apps (not worth any of my sarcasm...)
Camera related: 12 apps (Some of these are actually good /remote camera control/... but they're no compare to one of them with which you take photos from your 'life' at specific time intervals. I can pretty much guess where I've been by
looking at the nummerous desk photos it produces. And.. upside-down photos actually work your brain!)
Emergency / SOS / Help: 10 apps (now.. Samsung who do you think you are... with the gear you ship a "SOS" app that's totally lame... People WANT others to know they want to secretly send an emergency message. People want to wave a
flashy red button after they browse for the emergency app for a while... who needs convenience when you can have a big red button...)
Navigation / GPS - 12 apps (I particularly like the philosophical flavor you can attach to some of these - "Where am I? Why am I on this world" mhmm... Joke aside, it's really cool that I can put my phone in MA pocket where the GPS
reception is at its strongest.. Now seriously, sarcasm aside, some of these apps could actually come in handy in some situations)
Shopping - 4 apps - these are of the few types of apps I actually find to be useful on a smart watch... although I wonder how convenient scrolling a rather long list would be
Health and fitness apps - 7 apps - these are also what I think the kind of apps a smartwatch can be better for than a smartphone. well at least in some situations... So anyway I think that the elder generation which is the MAIN target
group of smartwatches would indeed greatly benefit "pills apps"...)
Watch faces - 4 apps (the highly custmizable LCD watch aside I can really imagine people using a moon phase clock, like to check if your neighbor is going to transform into a werewolf tonight, I see this further developed into providing
valuable info about other nocturnal beasts)
Now there are other great types of apps and single apps that I simply can't mention, I'm just overwhelmed. Like I could see employees using a corporation-sponsored 'fake call' app to get out of business meetings, because why have
business meetings when you can not have them, right. The only problem is there actually are two 'fake call' apps and it's gonna be tough to choose... unless you roll dice using that awesome winning dice app, yah!
I've decided to have the serious part in a second post.
HereWeGoAgain • almost 12 years ago
Now to get serious, in my opinion there are only 10-20 apps from the winning ones that actually deserve to be winners. I won't repeat what have been said before about the funny criteria and funny choices. And by funny I mean a lot other
negative words... Instead I will present some facts for everyone to be aware of and draw their own conclusions.
- I remember some guy in the discussion board had issues uploading the video in time or something and I remember the moderator's response explaining rules must be followed strictly... So if you go and check the video publish time of the
"My Notes in Gear" app you will find it was uploaded almost 4 minutes after the deadline (5:03:51 pm EDT).
- A LOT of the winning apps were made by people from Poland. No wonder as Samsung has two R&D Centres in Poland. There is for example a team of Polisih developers who published quite a few apps, 5(!) of which became winners (e.g.
Moonphase clock, Dice...). Now the interesting part is that one of the member of the team bskorupski (Bartosz Skorupski) is a Frontend Dev @Samsung and @TizenProject and @FirefoxOSFeed enthusiast as he proudly announced in his Twitter
and other profiles. Another app of the team is called 'Fake call', its video on Youtube is listed as published on July 18, there is no public video from July 17 or earlier, hmmm... The guy who's uploaded that very same video - Andrzej
Grupniski - is a UI/UX Designer w Samsung Poland R&D Center. In another of their winning apps - WalkingNavi! - you can see a guy exiting a building... which happens to be the Samsung R&D building in Poznan, Poland. The same guy then
uses a phone to navigate to some place, his starting point is the very same Samsung R&D Poznan address. Yet another app this bskorupski guy co-developed is called 'Guitar Gearo', its youtube video was uploaded on July 18/19. Now they
might have just deleted/changed the original video or they might have not :)
- Penguin Survivor and Puppy Pedometer's videos show a Windows app overlayed on top of the Gear emulator. Penguin Survivor is listed in the market as version 1.0.0 from August 20.
- POI nearby for Galaxy Gear 2
The author appears to be an ex Samsung Poland R&D center employee
- BabyMonitor
Another one whose video appears to be uploaded after the deadline or changed/deleted, who knows..
- Now there was some guy in the forum who also happens to be from Poland, his app - Remote Camera - is listed almost at the top of the apps list when sorted by 'NEW' and listed as published on August 20, albeit version 3.0.0. Updated
apps don't get listed as 'new'. So why is it then listed as 'new', maybe there is an explanation :)
- GearTasks and GearWeb
One of the developers works at Samsung, the other one too - at the Samsung Austin R&D Center.
- Video controversy (All these apps' videos were uploaded after the submission deadline, but there are no original videos publicly available, what's going on... who knows, maybe they've deleted them or whatever... still the fact
remains):
-- Bike Computer, July 21/22
-- Rescue Gear, July 19
-- Wings of fire, August 14
- There are a lot of wining apps whose developers have previously won one or multiple times in a Samsung developer challenge.
- The developer of Bike! and QR, both of which are winning apps is called Bartlomiej Koper and is a Group Leader, Manager at Samsung Electronics in Poznan, Poland, has also been to and worked in Korea.
I think that pretty much sums the facts.
Mind you, I don't blame anyone, I'm just showing facts. Interpret them as you wish.
I myself wonder what people do in these R&D centres. Do they develop apps? Do they do app certification? Could the fact that you do certification testing and take part at the challenge at the same time influence the certification
quality or result in any way? Or the fact that you take part in the challenge and know the people who do certification. Samsung would surely answer they're very professional.. but are they? These are questions that will probably remain
unanswered, but I for one know that there's a lot about this challenge I dislike and there is a lot of negativity I feel towards Samsung...
Adam Kuszczak • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoAgain:
"- Now there was some guy in the forum who also happens to be from Poland, his app - Remote Camera - is listed almost at the top of the apps list when sorted by 'NEW' and listed as published on August 20, albeit version 3.0.0. Updated "
Are you talking about market or challengePost? In market it is normal. Why you are surprised? App was initially for one device and now it was updated to all so that's why it could be in NEW for other phones. How exactlly it works is a good question for Samsung. I personally have no idea how algorithms for top in market works. Unpredictable...
Kārlis Mārtiņš Briedis • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoAgain Puppy Pedometer is a killer! They are following every modern and Samsung Gear UI guideline! But for some reason my eyes are bleeding when I see it... How can an app like that be a winner!?!
It would be interesting for me what officials say about facts given by @HereWeGo Again as official rules states 'Employees, representatives and agents of the above organizations [Samsung & ChallangePost] who are involved with the design, production, promotion, execution, or distribution of the Challenge, and all members of their immediate family or household* are not eligible to participate.'
As a lot of people here I am very disappointed in the judging and I better stick with Microsoft's organized contests, although the judging period for the last one (PublishWindows) was like 2 months. Better do it longer but more qualitatively
Steven Anderson • almost 12 years ago
I am sorry to hear about the dissatisfaction with "Puppy Pedometer" mentioned. I would welcome suggestions for improvements. :) I mean, I've seen positive comments about "PlantBeats" that also won, so I assumed the concept of a virtual pet to walk with was seen as interesting. Do you believe the stats displayed need to be changed all to simply "XP"? Or is there something else that is causing offense / causing it to be seen as inferior to other interactive pedometer applications? (I am serious on the interest in critical feedback beyond a general "it sucks" or "I fondle my gear(?)").
Regarding the dates: Check all of the apps from my profile in the store. All of them show as updated August 20th for some unknown reason. Sort the list of all apps by "Top->New" and you should see none were released recently however. Of the ones mentioned, "Penguin Survivor" passed QA on July 23 while "Puppy Pedometer" passed QA on August 1st. I submitted no updates since approval for any of these ("Puppy Pedometer" has an increased version number due to being rejected once).
Personal opinion: I expected only "Puppy Pedometer" and "Clockwork Mice" to advance. I was surprised "Penguin Survivor" did while "Clockwork Mice" did not. You may disagree with my assessment.
Thank you for the feedback. :)
EDIT: If you hesitate to post it here, I encourage you to send me an email! I do find it highly useful to hear about how much my ideas are crap as it is how I can improve upon them. So feel free to vent at me since I am asking for it. For an email, please feel free to contact: admin "at" phdgaming "dot" com. Thank you again!
Kārlis Mārtiņš Briedis • almost 12 years ago
@PHDGaming no one said your ideas are crap, just a crappy execution. Don't you really see that the UI is like from 2000s? It is neither modern nor retro (like Flappy Bird and others), it just looks and feels like it was made decade ago.
Steven Anderson • almost 12 years ago
@kmbriedis - Got it and noted. Improvements to the UI design are planned and will take an even closer look on how to make that better. If you have any other specifics on the UI you dislike, feel free to let me know. I do appreciate it!
Victor Dibia • almost 12 years ago
@PHDGaming. I'll approach the issue from a bit of a different perspective. First, I think Puppy Pedometer is a really decent effort. However, I think the discomfort expressed in comments above comes from a seeming attempt to implement two different types of design paradigms within the same canvas/app.
The environment when your puppy eats/naps looks balanced ... and seems to uniformly adopt the flat design kind of paradigm (http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/09/shots-showcase-ios-7s-design.html) . But when puppy starts walking (http://s3.amazonaws.com/challengepost/photos/production/software_photos/000/146/547/datas/xlarge.png?1405642776), it appears the buttons on that screen follow a non-flat paradigm (from a really long time ago) .
Some Actionable Tips
- Ensure you keep the flat design consistent ...
- Reduce color variation if possible,
- Try to clean up the edges of lines in the background , a little bit of details in your skies, and grass http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs42/f/2009/114/b/b/vector_grass_and_sky_2_by_blackmaddog.jpg .
A starting point, I believe.
Wishing you good luck as yo push forward to the next round!
Regards,
-V
Kārlis Mārtiņš Briedis • almost 12 years ago
@vykthur Games do not have to be flat, but they can't be too far from that neither.
Steven Anderson • almost 12 years ago
@vykthur - Thanks! Specific critical feedback like that is worth its length in gold. Good luck to your two entries as well. :)
Mohammed Asaad • almost 12 years ago
@viente thank you for confirming that judges saw your video during judging period, i sent screenshot of you tube analytic showing that no one visited my video, i suggest anyone else experiencing the same issue to send an email to support@challengepost.com
Tongyi Koh • almost 12 years ago
@PHDGaming Try using brighter colours. The furnitures, wall and floor looks like they havent been cleaned for a while.
Tomasz Florczak • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoAgain - that was sarcastic but also very comprehensive summary !
You wrote:
"...Presentation - 3 apps (Really handy some of these.. I mean why would you hold a device in your hand and push a hardware button to go to the next slide if you could lift your hand up, wait for the gear screen to turn on and aim at some...."
I think you might be referring to our app here ( SlideEasy) as we're giving users option to use gestures to change slides. Please kindly note the following:
1. We know that hardware presentations switcher devices (as you seemed to be referring to those) are doing similar tasks. But please also bear in mind that:
- some might just prefer not to hold anything in their hands and have them free. Others might prefer hardware switch. Ofcourse app does not have to suit everyone to be useful and marketable.
- why have additional devices if your smartwatch can already do the work ?
- smartwatch app can have additional information about your presentation (time, reminders, maybe simple notes like key numbers etc. that currently are displayed in our mobile app etc.)
- it is very easy to configure with your phone and external screen / projector
- it is more powerful. For instance important aspect of our app were buzz alarms that are discretely helping you keep presentation timing right. This is something you will not have in dedicated presentation switchers hardware and keeping time is very important aspect of good presentation.
2. I totally agree that paying audience attention to your hand movements is not the best idea while doing presentation. But you can do gesture in a really discrete manner as well without lifting your hand that much as shown in the video.
3. If user prefer not to use gestures at all than in the app you might also use buttons to switch slides (you do not need to look at watch screen for that, just tap on the left/right part of it). Using gestures is just one of options. Users can choose what's more convenient for them. We wanted to give users various choices to see what's going to work out better.
I will be happy to further discuss with you our app. I am open to any remarks - they might be a great help for us !
Tomasz Florczak • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoagain
As for the 2nd part of your msg there is quite big and skilled development community in Poland which might be one of the reasons you see so many entries from our country. But if you know / suspect that some of Polish contestants are here illegally as T&C clearly forbids to enter competition if you're anyhow related to Samsung, than it's not right at all and I believe you should write to the organizors (if you had not done it yet).
I am not sure if they are following this forum and will see your remarks.
EDIT: my mistake here. Only Samsung employees directly related with the contests are excluded from participation according to T&C.
Zuoo • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoagain, @TomaszF1
I think rules are quite clear. Let me quote:
'Employees, representatives and agents of the above organizations [Samsung & ChallangePost] who are involved with the design, production, promotion, execution, or distribution of the Challenge, and all members of their immediate family or household* are not eligible to participate.'
In Poland there are many workers of Samung R&D. I belive that not all of them are "involved with the design, production, promotion, execution, or distribution of the Challenge" so even people mentioned by HereWeGoagain are members of Samsung I think it still seems legit.
Tomasz Florczak • almost 12 years ago
@Zuoo you are right. I admit I have actually not checked T&C but assumed as it is a common practice that individuals related to company which is contest organizer are not eligible to participate. Sorry for that. Surprisingly it's a bit different here and so no rules seem to have been broken.
Lukasz Grabiec • almost 12 years ago
HereWeGoAgain - write about your suspicions to the organizers of this challange - this is not fair...
Dimitrios Tzimos • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoAgain
"- I remember some guy in the discussion board had issues uploading the video in time or something and I remember the moderator's response explaining rules must be followed strictly... So if you go and check the video publish time of the
"My Notes in Gear" app you will find it was uploaded almost 4 minutes after the deadline (5:03:51 pm EDT)."
Please be careful when writing about facts and rules. Inaccurate facts lead to inaccurate conclusions.
I am the author of this application. Keep in in mind that you are referring to the publication time of the video to YouTube. This is not the submission time to ChallengePost.
The video of my app has been created in YouTube BEFORE the submission deadline.
The submission of my app to ChallengePost has been completed BEFORE the deadline.
I received the confirmation email from ChallengePost BEFORE the deadline...
I would highly appreciate it if you correct your comment about my app.
Kārlis Mārtiņš Briedis • almost 12 years ago
@Jimis yes, you could have started uploading video, after you START this process you receive the link which you used for submission, but the video was ready after the deadline so you kinda broke rules
Moataz Hammous • almost 12 years ago
Iam very disappointed as i have spent time in developing my app News Wear, Video Crediting and not qualified & there's same application idea that have fatal issues as "Unfortunately App has been stopped has been qualified"
I don't know what's the judging criteria !!!
Longbow • almost 12 years ago
@kmbriedis
Not even in one place the official rules say about deadline for youtube videos, they do about submissions only. If Jimis made the submission BEFORE the deadline, then he did not break the rules.
HereWeGoAgain • almost 12 years ago
People, remain calm. I've just listed facts. Anyone whose submission is valid shouldn't worry. The facts and questions still remain...
@kurak38
As per the rules your app should have passed certification by the challenge deadline. Your app is listed as 'new' from August 20, which means that this is when it's passed certification. I'm not surprised, I'm just wondering. Updates to apps are not shown as 'new', so it's only logical that your app was certified and first published to the Gear market on August 20. And until you or any Samsung representative explains the situation it would seem that your app was certified after the challenge deadline.
@PHDGaming
You never commented why your videos show a Windows native window instead of actually working app. I think you're correct about the dates. Yours might have been updated on August 20, but since they're not seen in 'new' (not in the upper positions anyway) they were probably certified in time.
Generally speaking the lack of transparency is very bad. How can any challenge participant be sure apps were certified on time.
@TomaszF1
You, like anyone else, shouldn't take my words too personally. It's just an opinion :) I'm more concerned with the general failure of the judging to be of any consistency. To be perfectly honest, I think your 'buzz' feature is very useful and really what makes using a smart-watch a lot better than a hardware switcher. I wouldn't mind discussing further, but this wasn't the intention of my posts here, so maybe in another thread :)
@TomaszF1
I don't suspect or know anything. I'm listing the facts. And facts are important, because they can lead to very logical questions. Some people were complaining about the certification process, receiving silly rejections and so on. The question then arises - how can any challenge participant be sure his app is not being certified by a competitor. Because if people who do certification and at the same time take part in the challenge might intentionally or subconsciously not perform professionally when certifying apps.
@Zuoo
You're correct, not all of them are involved in the design, production, promotion, executing or distribution of the Challenge. But aren't those who certify the apps involved in the execution of the challenge? How about friends of the certification team members. So you work in the same office as someone who certifies apps and you take part in the challenge. Would it be totally impossible for certification members to sympathize with their friends rather than with strangers? And generally how do we know who is who and who does what. Generally speaking maybe letting your employees win a competition might be a smart bonus trick a company would do to promote company loyalty :)
@Jimis
Facts are facts... are facts... Inaccurate conclusions are done by people. But since you decided to join... Just like someone else mentioned. Rules have it that your submission is only valid if you provide a valid youtube video. But at 17:00 EDT you had a link but not video. So technically even if for 4 minutes your submission was invalid.
But really... Are apps like 'a dice' or a 'moon phase clock' or an "LCD clock" worth winning the $100.000? Any of the first round winner apps should be worth fighting for the big prize. In my personal opinion among the apps who didn't win there are plenty that are way way better than most of the first round winners.
Someone in the discussion board mentioned their app was rejected, because they had the 'Samsung' logo and this delayed their certification for more than 7 days. Now if I am a certification team member and take part in the challenge at the same time I'm putting my competitors at a disadvantage, because unlike them I could change my app as I please and nobody would know. Now even if there were no certification team members who took part in the challenge, the certification team members could still sympathize with their colleagues from other departments and certify their apps with higher priority. This is exactly why no good organization allows any of their members to take part in their own games/challenges/etc.!
Adam Kuszczak • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoAgain
I actually don't care what you say or suggest, and I don't have time for it. I have an e-mail from 5.08.2014 saying that my app is "Ready For Sale" and on that day it was in the market. End of topic
Dimitrios Tzimos • almost 12 years ago
@HereWeGoAgain " Rules have it that your submission is only valid if you provide a valid youtube video"
Please spend some time reading the rules and stop wasting my time. It is clearly stated: " Entries submitted on the Challenge website must include a URL for a video on YouTube"
@ kmbriedis "so you kinda broke rules". We live in a binary world. You can either follow either break the rules. There is no kinda break or kinda follow the rules. Please spend some time reading the rules and stop wasting my time.
@ kurak38
Totally agree with you. Sorry for continuing the topic.
Happy coding to everyone!
End of topic (hopefully...)
Maciej Jagiełło • almost 12 years ago
I wanted to address some of the issues here but I've figured out it's indeed a waste of time. What I really have to say is: good luck in the next part of the competition guys ;) Happy coding!